Occultation of X-rays from Scorpius X-1 by small trans-neptunian objects

Hsiang-Kuang Chang (), Sun-Kun King, Jau-Shian Liang, Ping-Shien Wu, Lupin Chun-Che Lin and Jeng-Lun Chiu
Additional contact information
Hsiang-Kuang Chang: National Tsing Hua University
Sun-Kun King: Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica
Jau-Shian Liang: National Tsing Hua University
Ping-Shien Wu: Institute of Astronomy, National Tsing Hua University
Lupin Chun-Che Lin: National Tsing Hua University
Jeng-Lun Chiu: National Tsing Hua University

Nature, 2006, vol. 442, issue 7103, 660-663

Abstract: Solar System minnows Scorpius X-1 (Sco X1) has an important place in the history of astronomy as, apart from the Sun, it was the first cosmic X-ray source ever detected. It now has a new claim to fame: small but significant dips in its X-ray light curves obtained by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer satellite may represent the first ever observation of small (less than 100 metre diameter) trans-neptunian objects (TNOs). The irregularities occur at millisecond time scales and are almost certainly caused by occultation of tiny TNOs. Since the first discovery of a Kuiper belt object in 1992, nearly a thousand more TNOs have been found. The ones that have been seen are hundreds to several thousand kilometres in diameter but many smaller objects have been expected to exist.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04941 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:442:y:2006:i:7103:d:10.1038_nature04941

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature04941

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().